We’ve given our visual brand a refresh 🎨 [Q&A w/ Jesse - Senior Brand Designer]

[j06 (Jamie)]

The green is goooooood. And isn’t it yellow anyway?

[Rat_au_van (Em)]

Different app icon ftw

[SouthseaOne (Michael)]

Have the new fonts been applied to the blogs yet?

There is still the “issue” that the forum comments below the blog entries have a different serif font which is not the case for the forum itself:

[lpoolrob (Rob)]

@jessec

Hot coral represents our warmth, our empathy and our human quality.

Right out of W1A

Tweaked logo is much better though.

[JIMMWX (Village Idiot)]

@jessec

Hot coral represents our warmth, our empathy and our human quality. So we’ve made it the forefront of our brand, followed closely by deep navy and soft white. We now have a vibrant range of secondary colours to support our primaries, carefully selected to maximise accessibility and to provide extra bursts of energy when the feeling is right.

Genuinely interested to understand how the colours support accessibility. Could you go into more detail how?

[jessec (Jesse Cogswell)]

Thanks @Lewis_P

We have an enormous library of illustrations that we’ve populated over the years that get used in the app experience, on emails and on the website. We’re in the process of updating everything to the bright and bouncy new style. We’re shaking off the debris of the ‘Corporate Memphis’ illustration era and being more direct, more fun and bringing more energy into everything. Ola, the artist behind our new illustrations has given us something pretty unique to work with.

Here’s one of my faves so far which represents ‘something’s gone wrong’

[JIMMWX (Village Idiot)]

For some reason, all I can think of is First Direct whenever I see these. That’s the only other bank I’ve seen use graphics instead of pictures when I see this

Saying that, kudos. I love it, and hope more banks start to follow suit.

[jessec (Jesse Cogswell)]

If anyone is interested, here’s a side-by-side of the old and the new icon.

• We’re saying goodbye to beige-yellow
• Each colour shard has been dialled up in vibrancy to reflect the new colour palette
• The navy background is our new, deeper navy
• We’ve added some subtle depth behind the top two shards
• We’ve corrected some of the geometry so that it’s more balanced (hard vs soft corners)

[SebH]

@Abcmsaj

I LOVE the fun typography and the exaggerated UI (wish the app was completely redesigned around this playful style) - really not sure about the logo re-colouring!

I totally agree with this view!

I do miss the yellow and am not so sure about green in the logo instead. It will probably grow on me over time though.

Edited to add:

@N26throwaway

I really like the rebranding here though, it’s nice, and quite subtle in many ways, and is in step with the evolution analogy from the app design thread linked to above. It’s lovely. All except the green In the new logo! What were they thinking? Nothing wrong with the green, it’s a lovely shade of it, but it’s far too bright compared to the rest of the palette that it sticks out and feels distracting. Maybe it’ll grow on me when I’m used to it.

As so often, @N26throwaway describes my attitude to it better than I can myself!

[coffeemadman (Jonathon 🏳️‍🌈)]

I like it except the green. Why was the orange colour changed? The green is just a smidge too bright.

[Abcmsaj (Alex)]

yeah I stand by my original point that that neon yellow/green looks really out of place next to the other 3 colours. Eyes go straight to it, feels like it clashes with the colours on either side

[jessec (Jesse Cogswell)]

@coffeemadman

I like it except the green. Why was the orange colour changed? The green is just a smidge too bright.

For a while, it was actually going to be BRIGHTER – believe it or not – as our new colour code for Neon Yellow is #C3FF34 . We’ve since optimised each colour on the icon so it doesn’t feel too off-balance. What you see today might take some adjusting to get used to! But hopefully it will grow on you

The orange – do you mean hot coral? The digital representation of hot coral has been strengthened to be closer to our fluorescent hot coral cards, although, we can never have a complete match with the physical card. It’s impossibly bright

[ndrw (Mr Popular)]

@jessec

The digital representation of hot coral has been strengthened to be closer to our fluorescent hot coral cards, although, we can never have a complete match with the physical card. It’s impossibly bright

Not to rain on the parade because I like this redesign, I really do. But you must mean Dull Salmon, right? Because I haven’t seen Hot Coral since the prepaid days

[j06 (Jamie)]

Yes it varies widely between dull salmon and neon orange, very rarely Hot Coral.

[Anarchist (Press ‘Help’ search ‘Contact us’ or email help@monzo.com or call 0800 802 1281)]

@jessec

Each colour shard has been dialled up in vibrancy to reflect the new colour palette

FWIW in my opinion, the beige yellow looks better than the bright green. The green is OK, it just appears so much brighter than the rest of the M.

[jessec (Jesse Cogswell)]

@ndrw

Not to rain on the parade because I like this redesign, I really do. But you must mean Dull Salmon, right? Because I haven’t seen Hot Coral since the prepaid days

Interesting! Might be time to update your card? If anything our cards have gotten brighter (they used to be a slightly pinkier salmon tone, now super fluero). I’ve had recent feedback from our card manufacturers that they wear shades when they produce our cards, as the ink is the brightest tone they work with

[Lewis_P]

Awesome, I’m definitely not opposed to that style. That illustration is great, its playful and fun. In hindsight I probably shouldn’t have likened it to clipart as that does it a disservice; It more that it feels like it lives in a slightly different universe to the exaggerated bold UI illustrations. Perhaps in motion, or in other contexts it makes all fits together. Looking forward to seeing more

[jessec (Jesse Cogswell)]

Brilliant

[AlanDoe (Alan)]

Hot Chip 4 eva!

[ndrw (Mr Popular)]

I’m #teamYello now (and never use a debit card to spend anyway) so I’m safe from dull salmon for a few years. Will see where hot coral science is in three years time!